Need Advice Pruning Cherry Tree After Professional Took 1/2 Tree

14 years ago

We have a Cherry tree that is about 15 years old which has for a couple of years produced a lot of fruit. This past spring we were away for an extended period of time and had someone come and prune the tree for us. Well, they took well over half the tree away. The centre limb was removed as well as lots of other branches and now it does look like a open bowl. However we got almost no fruit and there are lots of spurs growing straight up. Read lots of spurs. There was also no shade this summer.

So, were do we go from here? Do I remove all the spurs? Do I remove some of them? Is it possible to get some shade and some fruit?

If you have a cherry tree or an orchard I would appreciate advice.

Thanks,

CanuckOnFire

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Comments (6)

cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)
14 years ago
I would get that butcher back and demand a replacement! Who cuts the leader from a mature tree? If it is as bad as you say, the president/owner of the company that did the work should come take a look and if he/she is honest and responsible, you should get the offer of a new tree at no cost even before you ask!
brandon7 TN_zone7
14 years ago
Fruit trees are pruned much differently than ornamentals and for entirely different reasons. It's not the removal of the leader that concerns me (the central leader is almost always removed when pruning many types of fruit trees), but the possible severity of the pruning. It sounds like this guy may have tried to catch up on 10 to 12 years of pruning all at once (which is not a good thing).

It's hard to tell without a picture (and maybe without a before and after picture) whether the tree was properly pruned. If it were my tree, I'd post pictures in the Fruit and Orchards Forum and ask them for opinions and further maintenance pruning suggestions.

Water sprouts (the limbs growing straight up) are a result of the pruning. They will need to be removed and/or trained into a more horizontal direction. Again, advice on accomplishing this can be found in the Fruit and Orchards Forum.

I've been wanting to write a set of basic fruit tree pruning instructions for a while now, but still haven't started that project. There's lots more info than I could type out in one sitting.
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I am well aware of what modern day experts recommend. I disagree. I have experimented for 40 years on every kind of tree in my yard. An open wound, like all unsealed drying wood, cracks. Water enters the cracks along with debris and causes rot. Bugs find the moist rotting environment enjoyable and take up residence. Next thing you know you have one of those trees that are all hollow in the heart. The experts say the tree shuts the wound off and everything's Ok. Well if you don't care how long the tree's life span is and it just has to live as long as you do, Ok, otherwise, it's crap! Just like collar cuts. Under the right conditions, with a branch at a good horizontal angle, they're great, but not every situation is ideal and when you have three or four branches intersecting a crotch to remove it's going to take close cuts and sculpting with chisels to get cuts that will drain and heal and not rot. Keep in mind, these new methods are designed for todays professionals who must temper perfection with time is money. Sterilization takes time. Reworking the cut with hand tools takes time. Periodically inspecting and renovating the wound takes time. Properly treating the wound takes time and an improperly dressed wound is worse than no dressing at all. If you can come up with a reasonable compromise then you have saved a lot of time, therefore, money. None of this applies to the home orchardist. He can do a little at a time and do it right. Remember, these same experts are the ones who prune maples in March along our highways and byways, instead of waiting until just after bud break which would promote an almost immediate callus to form, and no bleeding. Lastly, fruit trees seem to be about the slowest to heal and the most prone to fungal diseases, so any precaution, no matter how time consuming is warranted. Methods like clean, close cut and wound dressing were developed over thousands of years by the people who developed most of our fruit and nut cultivars from wild, inedible plants, the Chinese and the Italians. Even if my own experiments hadn't convinced me, I'd still ere in favor of the ancients!
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Here's a good way to explore Davidrt28's analogy about ISA-certification and doctors. Pruning trees is kind of like doing surgery (actually, of course, it is surgery). If you are the kind of person that would trust someone without a medical license to do surgery on your husband, wife, or kids, then maybe you don't need that ISA-certified arborist; after all, living life on the edge may be for you. If however, you want at least a little reassurance that the person you are hiring knows something about what they are doing, then insisting that they are licensed/certified might be a good idea. Yes, there are a few out there (a small minority in the tree-cutter's world, I can assure you) that may know all they need to in order to do a great job pruning your trees, yet still aren't certified. I'm sure there are people out there that could competently perform surgery on one of your family members but don't have a medical license. Do you want to take that chance? Most homeowners (some on this forum may be exceptions) don't know how to prune trees. Since they don't know how, they are not able to instruct some rube-with-a-Ryobi in how to perform the job. David's assertion that an ISA-certified arborist would cave to the homeowner and not perform the job up to standards is not usually how things go! Any decent ISA-certified arborist will take the time, if necessary, to educate the customer on why they can't leave a hatrack in the customer's front yard. David's suggestion is like saying that a licensed doctor would do some botched surgery job, just because there'd be a few bucks in it for them. This isn't how things work! ...at least not usually! All that said, not every tree job requires an ISA-certified arborist. If you are having a tree taken down out in the middle of your field, that probably doesn't require a huge amount of knowledge about how trees work. Significant pruning on a tree in your landscape probably IS a situation where you want a professional that knows what they are doing.
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Embothrium
14 years ago
Search a pertinent-seeming string like orchard cherry pruning for additional discussion. You will probably get pages including diagrams. Being disease-susceptible cherry trees may decline after such heavy pruning; as indicated above it will not be the same situation as when developing a young, vigorous specimen into a certain shape or style.
canuckonfire
Original Author
14 years ago
Before and after pictures are probably possible but it will take a couple of days to find a before picture.

Is there any hope that the sucker / water sprout nearest the leader can be encouraged to become a new leader? I know this would take many years but it might bring back some of the shade.

I guess if there had been any discussion before hand we could have stopped it, but it is too late.

I'll look for some pictures .....

Thanks,
CanuckOnFire
brandon7 TN_zone7
14 years ago
CanuckOnFire,

It sounds like the pruner pruned the tree for an open vase shape (removing the leader for the purpose of introducing light into the rest of the tree for improved production and easier maintenance. Reintroducing a leader would not solve any problem but would reintroduce shade to the inner lower branches (defeating any positives of the pruning). As I mentioned above, the loss of the leader is not a problem. The way in which the leader was removed (suddenly, drastically, and late in life) might be a problem. At this point, I think you probably only have three reasonable options; you can remove the tree altogether, replace the tree with a young tree and start correct pruning practices early on, or work with what you have to maximize the remainder of the tree's future potential.
Dan _Staley (5b Sunset 2B AHS 7)
14 years ago
I agree that - as described with the available info - it was pruned as an orchard tree. You don't want a leader. You also don't want that much mass taken off, hence the pruning reaction. You'll want to take most of the new sprouts out and leave the ones you want.

Dan

Need Advice Pruning Cherry Tree After Professional Took 1/2 Tree

Comments (6)

cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)

brandon7 TN_zone7

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Need Advice Pruning Cherry Tree After Professional Took 1/2 Tree

Comments (6)

cyn427 (z. 7, N. VA)

brandon7 TN_zone7

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Embothrium

canuckonfireOriginal Author

brandon7 TN_zone7

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canuckonfire
Original Author